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Soyuz MS-28: US-Russian Crew Launches To The Space Station
November 27, 2025
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UPDATE | Baikonur Service Tower Damaged After Soyuz MS-28 Mission Launch

The launch of the Soyuz MS-28 crew vehicle from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome resulted in a major incident where the mobile service platform, also known as the service cabin (8U0216), collapsed into the flame duct below the launch pad.

This event rendered the facility, Russia’s only operational launch pad for crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS), essentially unusable. The collapse occurred despite the service platform being designed to retract into a protective niche under the pad and be shielded by a blast shield before launch.

The service platform is a critical structure that provides access to the lower stages of the Soyuz rocket during pre-launch processing, including connections for fuel and oxidizer lines and access to structural supports.

The damage to the platform, including deformation of access bridges and structural elements, has raised serious concerns about the continuity of crewed and cargo launches from Baikonur. The launch of the Progress MS-33 cargo ship, scheduled for December 21, 2025, is now at risk of disruption.

Preliminary assessments indicate that repairs to the service platform could take up to two years, and no immediate temporary solutions have been identified to maintain launch operations. The incident has prompted discussions about potential alternatives, such as utilizing duplicate hardware from the mothballed Site 1 at Baikonur, or from other Soyuz launch facilities at Plesetsk, Vostochny, or even the former Kourou pad in French Guiana. However, these options are complicated by logistical and technical challenges.

Site 31/6 has a long history, originally established in 1958 as a backup launch complex for the R-7 ICBM and later re-purposed for orbital launches, including crewed missions. It became a key site for Soviet and Russian spaceflight, supporting early missions like Soyuz-4 in 1969 and later serving as the primary launch site for the Soyuz-2.1a rocket family, which now carries both crew (Soyuz MS) and cargo (Progress) missions to the ISS.

Crewed launches resumed from Site 31 in 2012 after a 28-year gap, and it has since been the exclusive launch site for Russian crewed missions to the ISS. The facility has also hosted 400 launches in total, including the 400th launch in April 2020 with Soyuz MS-16.

The collapse of the service tower on the day of the Soyuz MS-28 launch marks a significant setback for Russia’s human spaceflight program, threatening the reliability of its access to the ISS and potentially impacting international crew rotations and cargo delivery schedules.

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A Soyuz-2.1a rocket launched the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0927 UTC(Nov. 27), carrying three crew members—NASA astronaut Christopher Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev—to the International Space Station (ISS).

The spacecraft docked with the ISS's Rassvet nadir port at 1234 UTC, completing a rapid three-hour rendezvous, with hatch opening at 1516 UTC.

The MS-28 crew were welcomed aboard the ISS as Expedition 73/74 members, by the existing seven members of Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineers Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos; Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke of NASA and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui greeted Kud-Sverchkov, Mikaev and Williams after the hatches opened followed by a "sit down" for a feast.

Williams will be eating his Thanksgiving Day dinner in Earth orbit. Although they are not the first crew to celebrate Thanksgiving in space, the Soyuz MS-28 trio are the first to launch and dock on the holiday day in the United States.

"The kid who played basketball in the driveway with his cousins before Thanksgiving dinner is now a flight engineer on the three-man crew for Expedition 74," wrote Juan Williams, a civil rights historian and Chris' uncle, in a recent column for The Hill newspaper. "Chris's incredible trip to space is rooted in incredible family trips. His grandmother took a voyage to a new world in 1958. She traveled with three children on a freighter boat carrying bananas from Panama to Brooklyn, New York."

"This Thanksgiving, I am grateful to live in a country where the grandson of Panamanian immigrants can represent America in the heavens, on a mission of peace and science," wrote the elder Williams.

"This is my second Thanksgiving in space, so I highly recommend it," said Fincke in a recorded video released by NASA ahead of the holiday. "This time it is going to be with a new Soyuz crew and we're getting food ready, so we have the traditions like turkey [and] there is some cranberry sauce here."

The food lab at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston prepared a special "Holiday Bulk Overwrapped Bag" (BOB) that arrived with a cargo delivery in September. "We have got everything here from turkey and the traditional things that Mike mentioned, some mashed potatoes, to crab meat, salmon and we even have some lobster, which is amazing!" said Cardman.

After the holiday and the return to Earth by Ryzhikov, Zubritsky and Kim aboard Soyuz MS-27 in early December, Kud-Sverchkov, Mikaev and Williams, together with Cardman, Fincke, Yui and Platonov will form the new Expedition 74 crew. During their planned stay, the Soyuz MS-28 trio will help carry out hundreds of science experiments and technology demonstrations, as well as conduct possible spacewalks and perform station maintenance as needed.

Williams will help install and test the European Enhanced Exploration Exercise Device (E4D), a modular workout system for long-duration missions that combines bicycling, rowing and resistive capabilities together with rope pulling and climbing. He will also conduct studies to improve cryogenic fuel efficiency and grow semiconductor crystals, as well as assist NASA in developing revised re-entry safety protocols to protect crew members during future missions.

Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev will be the first cosmonauts to be aided by GigaChat, an artificial intelligence (AI) bot that through both voice and tablet inputs will help make decisions about the operation of the Russian segment of the space station.

Williams, 42, a NASA astronaut and physicist, is on his first spaceflight, Kud-Sverchkov, who logged 185 days in space as a flight engineer on the station's Expedition 63/64 crew in 2021, is on his second spaceflight, while Mikayev is making his first journey to space. The crew, flying under the call sign "Gyrfalcon," will spend approximately 240 days aboard the ISS, with a planned return to Earth on July 26, 2026, landing in the Kazakh Steppe.

Kud-Sverchkov, 42, worked as a rocket engineer for RSC Energia before being selected as a cosmonaut in 2010. Mikaev, 39, was flying as a military pilot in the Russian Air Force when he was recruited for spaceflight training in 2018.

Williams has a doctorate in physics, studied supernovae using the Very Large Array radio telescope and completed residency training at Harvard that later led to him developing new image guidance techniques for cancer treatment. He joined NASA in 2021 and is the second member of his class ("The Flies") to fly into space.

The Soyuz MS-28 mission(or ISS 74S) operated by Roscosmos marks the first crewed flight of the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, which was reassigned after its originally scheduled vehicle, MS-28 No. 759, sustained damage to its heat shield during testing.

The Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle and payload fairing arrived at Baikonur by rail on October 22, 2025, and final preparations, including system checks and tests, were completed in early November.

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Rob Reiner And Wife Michele Murdered By Their Son

Hollywood director Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, 68, were found dead in their Brentwood, Los Angeles, home on Sunday, with their throats slit, according to multiple sources. Their 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested and booked for felony murder in connection with the double homicide, which police are investigating as a possible domestic incident following an argument.

The Los Angeles Fire Department was called to the residence at approximately 3:30 PM, where they discovered the victims, and the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery Homicide Division has taken over the investigation.

The couple’s daughter Romy, who lives across the street, is reported to have discovered the bodies. According to sources, she told police that a family member should be considered a suspect due to being “dangerous,” and police are questioning an unnamed family member.

Dispatch audio from the scene reveals Los Angeles Police Department(LAPD) called for backup at the Brentwood mansion around 3:30 PM.

Nick has previously spoken publicly about his struggles with drug addiction, which began in his early teens and led to periods of homelessness. He is in custody and being held without bail.

The investigation is ongoing.

Reiner, known for directing iconic films such as This Is Spinal TapStand by MeThe Princess BrideWhen Harry Met Sally…Misery, and A Few Good Men, had a long and celebrated career in Hollywood.

The 78-year-old was previously married to actress Penny Marshall, with whom he had a daughter, Tracy, whom they adopted. He married Michele Singer Reiner in 1989 after meeting on the set of When Harry Met Sally…; they had three children: Jake, Nick, and Romy.

Michele Reiner was a photographer and producer who worked on several of her husband’s projects, including Spinal Tap II: The End Continues and the 2023 documentary Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, and was an executive producer on the upcoming series *Wind River: Rising.

Tributes poured in from several Hollywood celebrities, and politicians.

In a provocative Truth Social post Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump wrote that Reiner died “…reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS... He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

The post drew bipartisan criticisms on social media. However the president doubled down while speaking to reporters in the White House.

"I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a DERANGED person, as far as Trump is concerned," Trump said. "He knew it was false - that I was a friend of Russia, controlled by Russia. The Russia hoax - he was one of the people behind it. He hurt himself career-wise... He became deranged - Trump Derangement Syndrome. I was not a fan of Rob Reiner. At all. In any way, shape, or form. I thought he was very bad for our country."

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The gunman, identified as a member of Syria’s internal security forces, was reportedly under evaluation for extremist views and was set to be fired the following day; authorities are investigating whether he was a direct ISIS member or merely espoused the group’s ideology.

Meskwaki Nation Police Chief Jeffrey Bunn confirmed that his son, Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, was one of the two Iowa National Guard members killed. The identities of the victims including Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, were not officially released until after next of kin were notified, but the Pentagon confirmed the deaths of two soldiers and one civilian interpreter. Three other U.S. soldiers were injured, two in critical but stable condition, and one with a superficial injury.

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President Donald Trump vowed "very serious retaliation" against those responsible, stating the attack was an ISIS attack against the U.S. and Syria, and that Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa was "extremely angry and disturbed" by the incident.

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President Trump, in a Truth Social post and subsequent remarks, emphasized that the U.S. would hunt down and eliminate those who target Americans, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoing this stance on social media.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst expressed deep sorrow, calling the fallen soldiers heroes and reaffirming the strong bond within the Iowa National Guard family.

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President al-Sharaa, who led the rebel forces that toppled Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, has since improved relations with the U.S., including a historic visit to Washington in November 2025, but the attack has raised concerns about the vetting of former rebel and Islamist fighters integrated into the new security forces.

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December 14, 2025
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At least 16 people, including one child, were killed in a mass shooting targeting a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday, according to New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon.

The attack occurred during the "Chanukah by the Sea" event marking the start of the eight-day Jewish festival, at Archer Park, a grassed area just north of the Bondi Pavilion, shortly after 6:47 pm local time, with over 1,000 people present at the beach event. It has been declared a terrorist incident by Australian officials.

Two gunmen, identified as a father and son, opened fire using long firearms; the 50-year-old father was shot and killed by police at the scene, while his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, a Pakistani national based in Sydney, was hospitalized in critical but stable condition.

A bystander, identified as fruit shop owner Ahmed al Ahmed, was hailed as a hero for tackling and disarming one of the gunmen in video footage recorded during the attack. He was praised by NSW Premier Chris Minns.

The man's cousin, Mustafa al-Ahmad, told Australia's News 7 that Ahmed was shot once in the arm and once in the shoulder. The injuries came when the second gunman fired on Ahmed after he tackled the first man.

"He's a hero. One hundred percent a hero. Once we saw on social media, he's one hundred percent a hero," Mustafa told the outlet.

Police discovered two active improvised explosive devices in a vehicle linked to the deceased gunman, which were safely removed by a bomb disposal unit. And multiple properties were raided, including a home in Bonnyrigg and an Airbnb in Campsie.

The 50-year-old suspect was a licensed firearm holder with six guns legally registered to him, and police found six additional firearms at the scene. One of the suspects, the 24-year-old son, was reportedly known to Australia’s domestic intelligence agency, ASIO, but had not been deemed an immediate threat prior to the attack.

"There was very little knowledge of either of these men by the authorities," Lanyon said. "The person was determined to be entitled to have a firearms license and…the person had a firearms license for a number of years for which there were no incidents."

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At least 42 people were injured, including 42 hospitalizations reported by NSW Health Minister Ryan Park, with seven in critical condition and two police officers among the injured.

The attack has drawn widespread condemnation from international leaders, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who called it an "act of evil antisemitism," and King Charles III, who described it as a "dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack."

"An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian and every Australian tonight will be, like me, devastated on this attack on our way of life," Albanese said at a press conference. "There is no place for this hate, violence and terrorism in our nation. Let me be clear. We will eradicate it."

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmersaid in an X post: "As we light the Chanukiah, our thoughts and prayers are with those murdered in the terrorist attack on Bondi beach today, their loved ones and the whole Jewish community. Light will always win over darkness."

Israeli President Isaac Herzog acknowledged the attack while speaking at an event in Jerusalem recognizing immigrants' extraordinary achievements on Sunday.

"At these very moments, our sisters and brothers in Sydney, Australia, have been attacked by vile terrorists in a very cruel attack on Jews who went to light the first candle of Chanukah on Bondi Beach," Herzog said. "Our hearts go out to them. The heart of the entire nation of Israel misses a beat at this very moment, as we pray for the recovery of the wounded, we pray for them and we pray for those who lost their lives."

Israeli officials were quick to lay blame for the deadly shooting in Sydney, Australia, at the feet of the nation's government, saying it had ignored "countless warning signs" of antisemitism.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced criticism online for suggesting that governments should clamp down on free speech to fight antisemitism. Critics argue that his genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza is the main cause of rising anti-Israel sentiment especially among Muslims. The PM had also initially lied about the identity of the hero who tackled one of the gunman, claiming he's a jew.

"We saw an action of a brave man – turns out a Muslim brave man, and I salute him – that stopped one of these terrorists from killing innocent Jews. But it requires the action of your government, which you are not taking," Netanyahu said at the meeting. "And you have to, because history will not forgive hesitation and weakness. It will honor action and strength.

In remarks to reporters at the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump praised al Ahmed: "And in Australia, you probably read, it's been a very, very brave person, actually, who went and attacked frontally one of the shooters and saved a lot of lives. A very brave person who's right now in the hospital, pretty seriously wounded. So I have great respect to that man."

The incident marks a significant escalation in anti-Israel sentiment in Australia, which has seen a rise in hate incidents since the war in Gaza began in 2023.

Investigation of Sunday's attack is ongoing, with police saying no further suspects are at large.

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